


The Invitation to Summer

by ElectraRhodes



Series: Good Omens Is An Antidote To Sad [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A Summer of Seduction, Aziraphale is the usual, Cottage Fic, Crowley is a sneaky snek, M/M, Post Ritz, The South Downs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 06:42:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21315871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElectraRhodes/pseuds/ElectraRhodes
Summary: “So,” Aziraphale asked brightly, “now that we’ve thwarted Armageddon, what exactly do you think you might do?”Crowley took a short pull on his glass of champagne and then set it down. He eyed Aziraphale from behind his shades.“If it’s all the same, I rather thought I might seduce you.”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Good Omens Is An Antidote To Sad [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537138
Comments: 57
Kudos: 342
Collections: The Ineffable Con Zine





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nia_Kantorka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nia_Kantorka/gifts).

> I reckon I’ve got maybe five GO fics inside me. This one was written for The Ineffable Con Zine. 
> 
> Much love to Nia, a wonderful Crowley!

Aziraphale placed his hand flat on the tablecloth between them. The Ritz was quite as delightful as he had anticipated. He leaned closer to his, well, his friend when it came right down to it.

“So,” he asked brightly, “now that we’ve thwarted Armageddon, what exactly do you think you might do?”

Crowley took a short pull on his glass of champagne and then set it down. He eyed Aziraphale from behind his shades.

“If it’s all the same, I rather thought I might seduce you.”

He smiled as Aziraphale turned a fetching shade of pink, and tried to formulate some kind of response.

“Seduce me? My dear fellow... I mean. Why now? After all this time? Surely we...”

Crowley took another mouthful of the champagne. It fizzed pleasantly against his tongue. He watched as Aziraphale tried first to cudgel his thoughts and then to find the words to express them.

Given the angel’s usual levels of emotional constipation he thought he could chalk up this particular moment in his campaign as a success.

“Yup.” He said. Popping the plosive. “You. Me. Seduction.”

Aziraphale hastily finished his glass.

“I think I really must be going. Lovely meal. And the world not ending. That was. Also lovely.”

He stalled, Crowley watched a riot of feeling wash over his face. Like a tide before an imminent moon. He raised an eyebrow in response.

“Lift home, Angel?”

********

Sometimes, well, more than just sometimes, Aziraphale stepped on the hem of his own desires, and tripped himself.

As he leaned heavily against the closed door of the bookshop he took another gulping breath. He heard the throaty start of the Bentley, revving against its own ready leap, a lion curtailed by brakes.

Aziraphale knew what would come next. Crowley, speeding off, perhaps to his flat in Mayfair, the one with the impossible view. Perhaps out of London, beyond the chanting widershin circle of hell that was still the M25. Maybe even off into the countryside somewhere. South, through Surrey, and out onto the Downs. Maybe. Possibly. Going fast, faster, fastest.

He adjusted his tie, clasped the bottom of his waistcoat and tugged it down. A comforting fudge against the limits he claimed to like. He fiddled. He fretted. Thought of the casual smirk. The almost certain pop of that ‘P’. That moment of assured confidence. As though Crowley knew something Aziraphale as yet did not.

He thought too, of all those other moments, when Crowley had laid before him a feast of small delights. A cascade of treasures plump with joy. And oh how he had been tempted. A cake there, a flacon of perfume here, a small pouch of velvet, a gilt edged book of hours, a fob for his watch, a small telescope to watch the comet that came to be named for Halley. He’d kept a little notebook detailing each sampling of Crowley’s careful imagination. And Crowley himself, well, there was never anything asked or expected in return. Not like that.

It might be an arrangement, but it was not a transaction.

He stood in the small galley of the kitchen at the back of the bookshop, a space barely worthy of its name, and made a thoughtless cup of ginger tea.

When he sat down in the snug of an armchair he shivered as he thought of those words, casually thrown down like the gauntlets he’d once been so proud to wear. And which Crowley had given him.

‘I rather thought I might seduce you.’

Good G... Heave... something. Aziraphale scalded himself on his too hot tea. Wreathed in the steam from his drink he breathed in the unknowing cloud of its erotic pull. He glared at the mug. Angel winged. Crowley had given it to him. It was his favourite. And the tea too.

“Dammit.”

********

The Bentley hummed contentedly as Crowley leaned against the bonnet and looked out across a sweeping range of green. Summer was a coming in, merrily singing something or other. He scrunched up his nose. Pollen. In drifts. Hazy. Sneezy. If he could be bothered. Probably not. He wasn’t especially suited to watery eyes or a drippy nose. And the angel had never seemed like an especially good nurse. More a ‘there, there, oh dear is that the time?’ pat on the head, kind of caregiver, than an empty the sick basin sort. Though he’d done well enough with Warlock. At a distance. Crowley grinned to himself. There was a reason he’d been the nanny after all.

He pulled his mobile from the back pocket of his jeans and scrolled through the local estate agents listings. Well then. He pocketed it once more and hauled the driver’s door open and slip-slid inside the car again.

“So. What do you think? Off to a good start.”

The car purred.

********

Aziraphale dithered. He was a past master at dithering. He could dither, if required, Olympically.

He had half expected to be bludgeoned by a late evening call. He’d rehearsed his steady refusal throughout the afternoon. Gradually though a trickle of anticipation had treacled its way down the ladder of his spine. It sat in a pool of unsteadying heat just behind his kidneys.

But the bookshop was quiet.

There might have been a mouse in the wainscoting, or pigeons in the eaves, or just the rush and rumble of water through old pipes, truculent and turbulent, ready to defy any plumber with sucked in teeth. It might even have been the distant underground shudder of the night tube. Rushing through tunnels, disturbing the cold cellars and graves and uncertain basements of central London.

He hoped the phone would ring, if only to catch up to his anticipation. It sat there, perched under his ribs. Giving a gentle squeeze. Like indigestion, he thought sourly. Like the petty grind of too much, too rich, too fast.

Typical, he thought to himself, typical of that sly snake to give him indigestion even at one remove.

Making him wait.

He blew out his cheeks. A glass of something might not be a solution, but it might be a salve. For his frayed nerves. Waiting for a phone that wasn’t ringing. For all he knew Crowley might have got himself discorporated, or worse. It wasn’t kind. It wasn’t fair. Leaving him alone to worry like this.

He drained the small glass of amontillado, and eyed the bottle. Maybe another?

Maybe several. He’d have to drink Crowley’s if Crowley wasn’t here to drink his own. And wouldn’t that serve him right?

He sighed. Again.

It was never the same drinking alone.

********

A few days later, after easy nights in lazy half timbered pubs, and a crawl around any number of properties, Crowley looked up, through the dark lace of treetops behind the brick built cottage slung low against a gentle incline. He turned and smiled at the young man who was hovering with the keys, keys to the front door, the back door, the cellar doors, the garage, the small potting shed, and the lurking thing at the bottom of the garden the Estate Agent’s particulars suggested might have been an ice house. Crowley thought it was just trying for a little glamour; more likely a falling down Anderson shelter.

“Show me the library again will you?”

He sat on the window seat in the shelf lined room. All dark wood and napped velvet fusty-ness. The old curtains hung on brass rods at the windows and creaking french doors. There was a faded turkey rug on the floor. The colours gleamed more brightly where furniture had protected the wool from the fade of years. It was an Aziraphale kind of room. And not just because of the yards of shelving. It was the sun. And the evening glow of a southern face. The angel of the eastern gate had seen each dawn, and here, in the summer of their lives, the room’s orientation might almost mean the light would be in lockstep with the angel’s dream of a perfect day. Aziraphale, Crowley hoped, might finally leave the winter of his life behind.

The young man, clearly trying not to loom, dried up in his enthusing about all the amenities.

Crowley smiled.

There would be terms. But he’d always been a skilled negotiator.

********

Aziraphale frowned at the telephone.

“Where? And perhaps more importantly, why?”

He listened, some more.

“I suppose so.”

He set the receiver back in its cradle and stared at it. Well at least Crowley hadn’t mentioned the seduction business again. Maybe he’d forgotten. It would be for the best after all. He stretched his neck and eased a finger inside his collar. Just a tad on the warm side. He thought of the low insinuation of Crowley’s voice. The thrill of possibility. The way he...

He shook himself. This was no good at all. He mustn’t. Not in the slightest. Better by far if he had forgotten. Or set it aside. Or. He wouldn’t even think about it. They were friends. Nothing less. And certainly nothing more.

********

Aziraphale blinked. The waiter did his usual flourish and tucked the tray under his arm.

“Gentlemen.”

He stared down at his main course. A solid steak and kidney pudding. With an assortment of properly defeated English vegetables. Crowley had opted for the game pie. Aziraphale frowned at both their plates. It was terribly hard to flirt in the face of such starch and gravy. Not that he wanted to flirt. But hadn’t Crowley said? He felt a short breeze of wistfulness tickle behind his ear. He should leave it all, well alone, say nothing. Hopefully the naughty demon had forgotten it all.

“I see you’ve given up on the whole seduction thing then?”

Crowley smiled and spread the starch of linen across his lap.

“Did I say that? I don’t think I did.” He nodded towards Aziraphale’s plate “How’s the pudding? Suet crust firm enough?”

Aziraphale shook his head, perhaps with a little edge of crossness, and ignored the question.

“Well. You haven’t tried anything. No little gifts. No fancy frills.” He glanced round the red and green and gilt of Rules Restaurant. “No candlelight or frou frou nooks in little bistros.”

Crowley smiled and cut his pie into eighths.

“Seduction isn’t only about the externals Angel.” He did one of his terminal pauses again. “Eat up. Don’t let it go cold. You don’t like soggy veg.”

Grumbling, Aziraphale did as he was told, and tried to ignore the benign smile curling up the corners of Crowley’s lips. He wasn’t looking at his mouth at all. Or the way the light reflected on the spot of the good Sauternes they drank with the proper queen’s pudding, that slicked his bottom lip. Or the way Crowley licked it up. Just a flash of red tongue. Out and in again.

He flushed when Crowley asked him if he fancied a coffee.

********

Crowley carefully wrapped the last of the glassware and tucked it into one of the smaller packing crates. It was amazing, over time, how things just accumulated. He’d been fairly disciplined, but there were still thirty crates in the atrium. Nothing compared to Aziraphale of course. The bookshop was going to take a lot of packing.

He whistled to himself. Half smiling round the tune as it morphed into something by Queen. Still, he’d got the facial dexterity to smile and whistle all at once. He was, indeed, a champion.

He labelled the crate and surveyed the kitchen. Just the furniture really. And the plants. And the statue. And the lectern. He sighed. There was always more to do than you really could conceive of when you packed up your life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ye saga continues...

“Crowley, I want you to know that this is a rum sort of seduction. It seems to me I’m doing all the work!”

Crowley continued to look at the painting on the wall of the Tate Gallery’s special exhibition.

“I thought you liked William Blake?”

Aziraphale looked around the busy room.

“I did. I do. Odd chap. Kind wife. And thank you for the ticket. But really. It seems to me this retirement project of yours isn’t going terribly well.”

Crowley stepped back from the painting and put his head on one side.

“Kind of you to be concerned. But I wouldn’t worry. I think it’s all going swimmingly.”

“But you’ve done nothing. Said nothing. I know you said it wasn’t externals. But. All we seem to do is the usual run of things. A trip here. A meal there. There’s nothing new.”

Crowley smiled and glanced at him, head still tipped to one side.

“Thinking about it are we?”

Aziraphale sighed.

“Honestly? I’ve done little else. It’s been weeks.” He murmured. “I did wonder if we meant the same thing by seduction at all.”

Crowley looked at him properly.

“Something like the ways one partner convinces another to pursue an intimacy originally considered undesirable. Thinking about what I might do for you, or you for me.”

Aziraphale looked at him miserably.

“Well, yes. Both. And.”

“Ahh, so. Wondering if it was a bit of a tease? Or were we hoping for a grand gesture?”

Aziraphale sat heavily on one of the benches that ran along the centre of the room.

“Possibly both.” He grumbled.

Crowley sat down beside him. Aziraphale turned to him expectantly. Crowley leaned a little closer.

“The tea room here is really good. Or we could walk along the Thames. I’m easy. Which would you prefer?”

Aziraphale watched as he sauntered casually from the room, he sighed, Crowley really did have the most splendid bottom.

********

Aziraphale’s nose twitched. He fussed at some books, frowning at one inserted into the shelving upside down. Perhaps to remind someone to purchase on a future occasion. Or to indicate how far along they had browsed. None of that, he thought to himself, none of that. He righted the book.

They had continued to dine together, they had got drunk on a decent Chateau Neuf de Pape, they’d even been on two drives into the countryside. But not a word. Just the usual interested attention. The careful curation of possibilities.

Aziraphale sniffed again. Of course he’d noticed the appreciative looks whilst they were out. It was hard to miss the casual flirtations, the interest. He knew people found Crowley attractive. With his slinking hips and tight behind. His quirking eyebrows. His mobile mouth. The way he...

He flumphed into his favourite chair. Of course people found Crowley attractive. Sexy. He wriggled against his thought. Well. Yes. Sexy. Crowley was all sex on long legs.

Aziraphale’s thoughts halted like a train that has finally understood the meaning of the word terminal. Slinky, sexy, interested Crowley. Who was hell bent on seducing him.

He ahemed to himself, startling his heart as it found an effort had been made. An effort that was just stirring into attention. Aziraphale glanced down at his lap. Oh dear.

********

Crowley smiled slightly as Aziraphale dealt with a customer. He could almost taste Aziraphale’s desperate capitulation. Still, faint heart never won fair maid. It wouldn’t do to overplay his hand.

“Anything planned this week?”

Aziraphale looked at him sharply.

“What have you got in mind?”

“Nothing in particular. I just wondered. Might go for a putter around.”

“Oh yes? Country pub is it?”

Crowley smiled.

“Thinking about finding a place. Retirement. You know.”

Aziraphale pouted, a small pooch of his lips.

“I thought I was your retirement project!”

Crowley glittered at him from behind his glasses.

“Do both at the same time. Don’t you think. Nice house, good view, bit of garden, a mile of shelves. Somewhere to cherish. Something precious.”

Aziraphale paused, considered his punctuation.

“I’d have to look. I wouldn’t want to commit to anything sight unseen.”

Crowley shrugged.

“Sure. Wouldn’t imagine anything different.” He straightened up. “Be seeing you then. Give me a ring if you fancy it. Or I will. If I decide to pop off.”

He was out of the door before Aziraphale could stop him. The echo of that plosive ‘p’ bouncing around the atrium of Aziraphale’s mind. Again.

********

Crowley had thought Aziraphale might hold out for a week. In the end it was just three days.

“Where are we going then?”

Aziraphale sat in the passenger seat of the Bentley. He’d made several efforts for this little sojourn. And rather hoped he hadn’t been to obvious about any of them. It wouldn’t do to seem too keen.

Crowley didn’t reply but Aziraphale followed the drift of the route down through the southern reaches of London heading for the A3.

He watched the speedometer with a frown. For once, to his chagrin, Crowley moderated his speed.

Ninety minutes later he pulled into a lay-by next to a small red brick cottage set back from the road. There was a for sale sign slumped against the garden gate.

Aziraphale followed Crowley inside. He didn’t ask how it was he already had the key.

In the room with all the shelves he stared out of the french windows down the garden. Squinting in the golden light that suffused the room. Warmed him through. He felt something clenched unfurl inside. A shiny acorn heeding the call of spring, putting forth shoots. He hardly knew what to say.

He was quiet throughout the journey back to Soho. Crowley kept his face impressively still.

********

“Come to dinner. I’ll make something, nothing fancy, don’t get too excited.”

Crowley managed to keep the smile out of his voice as he listened to his angel down the line. Aziraphale always sounded short when he was trying to agree to something without being too obvious about it. As though there were more gaps in longer sentences where his hopes might leak through.

“Shall I bring something?”

“Decent loaf would be kind. Maybe some milk. Sixish do you?”

“Sixish it is.”

He arrived on time and Aziraphale half expected him to come bearing flowers or chocolates or something declarative. But Crowley wordlessly handed over a litre of milk in a waxed carton and a loaf of bread from the french bakery near his flat.

They sat and ate, crowded into a table in the back room, next to the unnameable kitchen.

It was a passable chicken risotto. There was a crisp bit of endive to go with it. And some wild greens to offset the sweetness of the rice. The bread sopped up the juices.

Dessert was a creme caramel. The taste a slippery moan of pleasure.

Aziraphale watched as Crowley sucked his spoon clean. He tried not to swallow too obviously. Desire and terror were twin demons harrying him with little pitchforks. But he couldn’t go on like this. What if Crowley left London? That glorious house with its promise of summer days. He shuddered. And summer nights. That bedroom. Crowley hadn’t even laboured the point. One beautiful bed fit for two kings. With an adjacent bathroom, and that positively sinful tub. Certainly better than the one in hell, which really ought to have been the last word as these things go.

He watched as Crowley leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes against the low light of the candles. He was the picture of contented satisfaction. Not even hiding behind his glasses as he stretched languorously.

Aziraphale licked his lips, his mouth a little dry, probably the wine he thought desperately, wondering what Crowley would do if he rolled over now, and faintly horrified at the image that threw up in his mind. Crowley, rolling him over, his long hands, his wicked tongue, that firm bottom, his laughing insufferable insinuating gravel of a voice. He shivered. He looked at his friend and saw that Crowley was watching him. Maybe it was going to happen tonight. Maybe this careful indifference was all a calculated ploy. Well, he was ready. He sat up a little and smiled. Crowley smiled back and eased forwards in his chair.

“Need a hand with the washing up?”

Aziraphale wondered if it was possible to discorporate, on the spot, from thwarted desire.

********

The following morning Aziraphale lay alone in his own comfortable, but rather narrow bed, staring at the ceiling, his wings, for only the second time in countless millennia, fully extended and hanging off over the edges.

He’d woken, startled by the complexity of his own mental erotica. Usually the limits of his daydreamed passions involved a quick cuddle, something vague and blurry in the middle, followed by a nice hot cup of tea. The dream that had woken him though had been complex, rich in texture, saturated by sensuality, alive with a heady, nay veritably throbbing pleasure. Wings stretched outwards, yearning like a budding green leaf, hurtling towards a welcoming pulse of startling brightness.

He’d taken care of that quickly, and now lay basking in its afterglow.

It had all been rather lovely. He let out a long breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

He pulled a pillow over his heated face and held it there. Perhaps he could hide from his own desires? He could almost hear Crowley laugh at him. Yes well, it was working out too well, he could admit to that. Sneaky serpent. Leading him on. Teasing. Making suggestions. Promising. Tantalising him.

He threw the pillow across the room and was somewhat relieved when it didn’t add insult to injury and burst in a feather filled flummox. He rather thought he might. He persuaded his wings to tuck neatly away.

********

Crowley suppressed a smile. Aziraphale was standing at the camera phone entrance to his flat. He was a little awkward, standing there, not quite hopping from foot to foot, with a large bunch of peonies tucked under one arm, and a box of pralines under the other. Come to show him how it should be done he shouldn’t wonder. He buzzed the front door open.

Aziraphale took the stairs two at a time. At the door he’d barely had time to knock before Crowley opened the door.

“Come in angel.” He stepped back to let Aziraphale in. “Those are pretty? Off somewhere nice after?”

Aziraphale thrust the flowers and chocolates at him.

“For you. Thought you’d like them. Plants. Those nice chocolate thingies. Thought it’d help.”

“Help?”

“Get on the same page. Catch up.” He frowned and jiggled the two gifts a little in Crowley’s face. “You know. How it should be done.”

Crowley accepted the flowers.

“You know what peonies mean don’t you angel.”

Aziraphale flushed. Romance. Prosperity. Good fortune. Compassion. A happy marriage.

“Bashfulness? I looked it up.” He held out the chocolates more firmly. Crowley took them too.

“I’m sure you did.”

Aziraphale followed Crowley into the kitchen. He watched as Crowley set down the chocolates and then trimmed the peonies’ stems and settled them with a tender hand into an old fashioned wide-mouthed milk bottle.

“I’ve packed all the vases.” He explained.

Aziraphale looked around. Through the revolving door he could see a stack of wooden packing crates.

“Packed? You’re leaving?” He couldn’t help the note of panic that fluted his voice. “For that house? With the garden? And the mile of shelves?” His words tumbled out. “That glorious bed? You’re leaving me for that tub?”

Crowley smiled at him.

“It would fit two you know.”

Aziraphale stared at him. Crowley’s eyes crinkled at the edges. He held out a hand. Aziraphale looked at it, he looked at him, he looked at it again.

“I suppose I ought to try and keep you fully occupied? Make sure there’s not too much time left for tempting?”

Aziraphale let himself be tugged closer.

“I expect I’m a bit of a handful at times.” He continued. “I expect that’s a good thing.”

Crowley tightened his arms round Aziraphale’s waist. Buried his face in the crook of Aziraphale’s neck. Breathed in the warm cologne and scent of angel he knew so well. There was a subtle shift there. The tell tale scent of winter that usually clung to him was gone. He pulled back a little to look Aziraphale in the face.

“A bit of a handful? I expect you are. Perhaps I should find out?”

He slipped his hands lower and squeezed him again, and then smiled when Aziraphale squeaked

“Really I’m doing everyone a favour letting you seduce me.”

Crowley closed his eyes.

“You’re too kind Angel.”

Aziraphale smirked.

“Generous to a fault.”

“Determined to have the last word too, I dare say.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it again. He kissed Crowley instead. Anything to stop him saying anything else. Seduce him, indeed. He’d show him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....  
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> 
> Thanks for reading ;)


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